We put the all-in-one site building and hosting service to the test for our experimental retail program

Web-building platform Squarespace makes it easy for anyone and everyone to build a beautiful home online—you don't have to be a coding or design expert, because Squarespace makes everything simple and accessible. Design isn’t just a veneer at Squarespace, it’s a value that permeates to the core, as evidenced by everything from their New York City office space to the team they’ve built to conceive, code and deliver their services. We spoke to one team member, Luis Gonzalez, about his experience at the company, where he’s been on the brand design team for over three years. “One of our core values is that design is not a luxury. We’re all about democratizing good design and, through that lens, we want to empower our users to do great things.” says Gonzalez. And we’ve experienced first-hand how this philosophy plays through. We run the COOL HUNTING Omakase e-commerce site on Squarespace and found the experience of building the site just as satisfying as the final result.

We chose Squarespace to build CH Omakase for its ease and speed for getting up and running, and the ability to build a commerce website that matches the premium offering of our experimental retail program. Gonzales says they “put a lot of time in to making things [including the Squarespace user interface] elegant and well-designed. Hopefully the users can come in to make their website and not stress about making it look professional and just focus on what they’re really passionate about.”

We shared our recently refreshed version of the site with Gonzalez to get some feedback. He suggested we look at the new ImageBlock 2.0 feature they recently rolled out to offer more flexibility for laying out text around or on top of images. We used it to update the page that highlights last year's 2016 Omakase products with a nice looking header. Not only is the result clean and crisp, it was a breeze to create, thanks to the clever platform and helpful team.

You too can create an online store or portfolio for your creative endeavors with Squarespace, starting with a free trial. No credit card is required. Further, readers can use the coupon 'COOLHUNTING' for 10% off their first website or domain purchase.